5

T he utter chaos consuming everything around Shade Headquarters seemed unending.

This was worse than anything the task force had faced to date, and while every team of operatives had their own objectives, none of them had any idea who or what existed at the very center of the blinding-white storm at the building’s entrance.

But they kept fighting anyway. With everything they had.

They still had a job to do.

Within the deafening melee of shrieking, yammering griybreki swarms, augmented weapons fire, explosions from every direction, and the worsening bolts of white-hot light erupting from the massive column of magic at the center of it all, it was a miracle any of the operatives could still hear each other through the comms as they screamed over the noise.

“Eastern jump point neutralized!”

“Almost got two more down to the west! Just a little longer…”

“We need more boots inside to get everyone else out!”

“Where the hell is Knox?”

“Holy shit, people. Look at that thing!”

As if they all shared one mind, every operative paused long enough to turn toward the horrible, fiery storm in the center. Bolts of light shot from it now every half second, searing across the sky in jagged arcs, obliterating everything they touched.

The blinding light intensified before the entire swirling column shuddered and swelled. A low hum cut through the sound of battle, rising violently in pitch, growing louder by the second.

“Oh fuck…”

“Take cover! It’s gonna blow!”

The storming column erupted, all its contained power unleashed at once.

Blinding white light sprayed and rippled across the battlefield. A cracking boom ripped across the parking lot, splitting asphalt and stone beneath.

The earth groaned deep in its core, as if in pain logic-defying agony beneath the horrors of such an assault.

Despite the shouted warning, no one had time to search for cover, let alone get to it.

The blistering light and searing heat burst away from the vortex to sweep across the entire property in nearly simultaneous waves of glorious destruction.

The griybreki swarm streaming toward that vortex from whatever jump points around the perimeter still remained were swallowed up by the first explosive wave. It pummeled them to dust where they stood and left nothing of them behind.

Then it swept across the operatives too, unable to change course now that such power had finally detonated.

But when it reached them, the concussive force of bursting power did not consume them like the griybreki horde. Instead, it swept every operative off their feet, blasting them away in a howling gale of unnatural heat to send them all flying.

It didn’t stop there.

Trees snapped and groaned beneath the rippling waves. Thick trunks splintered in half, branches and leaves stripped away in an instant. The larger trees of the surrounding forest were ripped up by the roots and tossed away from the compound to crash into those that remained.

The compound fared no better. The entire building trembled violently, shaking beneath the explosion and flinging massive chunks of its outer walls and insufficient foundations, as if it had already been flagged for demolition.

Total physical destruction in the blink of an eye, ending the battle that would have continued longer than Shade could have withstood.

Then it was over.

J ust over a mile and a half southwest of the compound, an enormous, hulking grimbúl stood atop a grouping of boulders within the woods. He’d tried to find the highest vantage point from which to oversee his glorious plan unfolding, and he had not been disappointed.

He had the perfect view from here, laughing freely as the griybreki swarms demolished everything in their path and the fuckers who called themselves Shade scrambled desperately to fight them off.

When the blazing column of light down below erupted, the grimbúl had no idea what it was. But from here, he saw the whole thing seconds before the first detonating wave reached the outer limits of the parking lot.

“What the—”

Then the erupting magical light blinded him, and he nearly stumbled off the top of the boulders as he tried to look away, shielding his eyes.

The devastating wave of blistering heat and smoke and dust sprayed up toward him a moment later, joined by the horrid groan of the forest before the closest trees cracked in half.

The pulse made the grimbúl’s footing falter on the boulder. He stumbled off balance before crashing to the stone and sliding painfully down the rest of the way.

Raising a meaty arm in front of his face, he shielded himself from the worst of the blast and the lingering debris pummeling toward him.

It was over in seconds. Dust and shredded plant material and prematurely stripped leaves fluttered all around him in the aftermath.

When the erupting chaos finally settled enough, the grimbúl pushed himself up on one knee and looked out across the remains.

Every single one of his griybreki were gone.

“No,” he muttered, pushing himself fully to his feet. “No!”

He fumbled with a meaty hand for the control module he’d slipped into the inner pocket of his jacket and yanked it out, eyes wide in desperation. He stabbed at command buttons and desperately searched the results illuminating on the device’s screen.

There was a disturbingly small amount of data, and it all told him the same thing.

DataPoint1: Error. Equipment malfunction.

DadaPoint2: System Offline.

DataPoint3: System Offline.

DataPoint4: Error. Equipment Malfunction.

DataPoint5: Warning. Capacity Overload Imminent.

DataPoint6: Unresponsive.

All dozen locations of his new technology delivered the same harrowing response, all twelve of them suddenly rendered ineffective.

After he’d been assured this technology would work. That it couldn’t be overloaded or terminated once the startup sequence initiated.

He hadn’t built this attack on a series of channeled portals. This was goddamn magitek!

He refused to believe what his eyes and the control module in his hands told him, even after he continuously stabbed at the device with fat fingers, commanding now useless technology to reboot simply because he desired it.

None of it worked.

He turned toward the closest piece of magitek machinery he’d laid around his enemy’s base. From thirty yards away, the damage was impossible to ignore where he’d set one glinting piece of genius magitek technology.

The metal box nestled in the woods, with all its blinking lights and humming mechanisms.

Now, he only saw bits of shredded metal and sagging exterior panels, the rest of the equipment that had ensured his upcoming victory half-melted on one side. Still oozing, as if he’d made a deal for machines of augmented parts that only looked like steel but performed like a stick of melting butter.

Then, within the eeriness of the ensuing silence, while thick smoke rose in dark columns against the night sky—from the parking lot below, the building, and nearly a dozen other locations in the woods around the base’s perimeter—the grimbúl finally realized the worst of it.

Nothing made a sound in the explosion’s aftermath.

Not even the thousands of griybreki he’d unleashed on his enemy to wipe them off the fucking map.

Because not a single one of his horde remained.

They were all gone. No trace of them left behind. As if they’d been swept up by a different type of portal and transported somewhere he would never find them.

They hadn’t disappeared. They’d been systematically eradicated.

“That fucking piece of Xaharí scum fucking lied to me !” he roared, his snarling growl bursting across the remains of so much destruction.

Then the grimbúl whipped out a small cell phone laughable in size compared to the thickness of his fingers fumbling to open the damn thing.

Seething with fury, spittle flying from his mouth with every venomous exhale as he stabbed at the buttons, he finally made the call and nearly crushed the phone against the side of his head when he slapped it to his ear.

As soon as he heard the click of the answered call, he unleashed his rage in a single string of bellowing without even pausing to draw breath. “You fucking lied to me! It’s gone. All of it! No, I don’t give a shit what your fucking technology was supposed to do. I’m telling you it’s fucking gone ! And you’re gonna make it right!”

He spun around to trudge across the open land in the small wooded clearing, now cluttered with not only forest debris from the explosion but bits of asphalt and charred building rubble flung by the blast.

“No, you listen! I’m gonna find you and wrap my hands around your lying gullet, you fucking fraud! Let’s see how hard you laugh then !”

He almost chucked the phone at the boulder beside him but thought better of it and paused, growling. The hulking grimbúl considered his options, which had now changed drastically, thanks to this unforeseen disaster.

He’d been played like a fucking moron, and now the whole game had changed.

Intent on making an entirely different call, he searched the contacts in his phone, fuming and growling through heaving breath.

Something rustled through the underbrush behind him.

Soft and short-lived. Definitely the sound of movement.

He froze.

Was that son-of-a-bitch warlock here in the flesh, watching the whole time? Laughing at him while the grimbúl laughed at his previously assured victory?

Forcing himself not to move, he listened for the sound again. When it came, he moved with more speed than his enormous size and girth suggested and spun around to face its source.

It didn’t take long to find.

In the darkness, the pair of large, silver-glowing eyes stood out like beacons from between trees.

Those eyes hardly moved at all until they’d doubled, tripled in size far too quickly.

The scant moonlight falling into the clearing illuminated the vicious head of an enormous, shaggy gray wolf descending upon him, those glowing eyes at its center.

Jaws stretched wide in a snarl. Exposed fangs flashing in the moonlight, like an echo of the dying star that had just wiped out the entirety of Eduardo’s griybreki army in this world.

But the wolf got Eduardo all to himself.